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The Republican catch phrase as the 111th Congress winds down appears to be “rushing this thing through,” or something similar. It’s an accusation that the Democrats are “ramming this thing down our throats,” or some such, and the implication is that the poor Republicans just don’t have enough time to do their jobs. I mean, read all these bills.

It’s true, they’ve used the same phrase in the past, but it’s about every other phrase coming out of their mouths these days, the other being “ignoring the mandate of the American people.”

Never mind that (a) several of them are on record saying they want to stall so that the bills they fear will pass will have to wait for the 112th Congress, which will be populated by more of them, (b) several of these bill have been languishing around for months now, and (c) these are the same whiners who’ve filibustered every goddamn bill the Democrats have tried to put through.

Didn’t work with Don’t ask don’t tell, now did it? And that’s a curious thing. Eight Republicans — including two who voted against cloture — voted to repeal that disgusting policy. The extremists on the right (most of them, these days) are howling in despair and predicting disaster for the U.S. military. Tell that to Alexander the Great. But really, what they’re howling about is something entirely different. That one little vote — the disaster it portends is for the extreme right and homophobes everywhere because it proves that progress does indeed happen, regardless of how much you try to stop it.

For some reason, though, the radical rightists didn’t try the “we don’t have enough time to read the bill” thing with DADT. Maybe “repeal the damn thing” was actually simple enough for them to understand.

But they killed off the bill providing aid to the first responders on 9/11 — these uber-patriots who use “9/11″ to stir up fear and question the patriotism for everyone else. They didn’t have time to read the bill. Never mind that it was introduced in February. February 2009.

And they don’t have time to read the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which was completed in April.

They just killed the DREAM Act outright, though. It was about immigrants, and they never had any intention of reading that one.

I suppose Harry Reid could file for cloture on the 9/11 bill again, and probably cause more howling of outrage from Republicans who don’t like the idea of working the week before Christmas like the rest of us. Jeez, these guys get more vacation time than I do, and I get a mountain of it.

Chuck Shumer says there will be another vote and that they’ve rejiggered it to make more Republicans happy. But when has that ever gotten Republicans to vote “yes” on something?

And the real reason they’re stalling on the START is because they don’t want the United States to limit its nuclear arms in any way whatsoever, which made Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham look like total idiots when they threatened to fuck with it because Reid was gonna make ‘em vote on DADT. They were gonna fuck with it anyway, let’s be real. They think that if the United States cuts back on its nuclear weapons, it won’t have enough to blow Iran off the map. And maybe North Korea, although you’d think they already woulda done that. What keeps ‘em so quiet about North Korea, I wonder? They’re hatred of Kim Jong-il doesn’t even make the shadow of their hatred for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The leader of this madness is Arizona’s junior senator, Jon Kyl. Combined with mean old man John McCain and Arizona’s nutty governor, Jan Brewer, that state’s starting to look like the Mississippi of the West.

Kyl is the Senate Minority Whip, meaning he’s responsible for whipping up the insanity to a fever pitch, and he was just named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. Of course, Time also named the guy who started Facebook as its Man of the Year, so take that for what it’s worth.

Kyl’s another one of those who is calling Harry Reid sacreligious for making the senators work this week. Say, did you happen to notice that Joe Lieberman, who is Jewish, said not one work about working on the Sabbath to repeal DADT? And Kyl, named by distributorcap as the 2010 Douchebag of the Year — sure spends a lot of time on the Sunday morning talk shows and not in church.

But he also said something about Christmas being one of the two most sacred days to Christians, the other being Easter, and the two taken together being the only two times in the year many Christians grace the inside of a church.

The other 363 (364 in Leap Year), you’d be hardpressed to tell they were Christians at all, unless, of course, you happen to believe that Christians are all about making money and screwing everybody else.

Regardless of all that, the end of the 111th Congress is nigh. It accomplished a lot actually, but also caved a lot to the threats and machinations of the Bully Party. The 112th Congress isn’t likely to accomplish jack shit, what with the Republicans’ Number One priority being to keep Obama from being elected.

So, the big question will be who’s to blame for the gridlocked Congress.

You and I know the answer to that. But what about the rest of America? Will they finally get it? Or will they go along with the Republicans and blame the black guy in the White House?

Only time will tell. But I know which one it’ll be if a certain somebody doesn’t get off his ass and show some gumption. Getting DADT repealed was quite a coup. But we need to see more.